September 15, 2011

From email addressed to "members of the campus community," which I received a few minutes ago:

Many of you have been involved this week in an important debate about diversity at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. I want to again say that the university remains firmly committed to enrolling a highly diverse student body -- that means recruiting not only students from ethnic minorities, but those from rural Wisconsin, first-generation college students, women in the sciences and othergroups.

When making admissions decisions, UW-Madison uses holistic processes for undergraduate, graduate and professional schools that take into account a range of factors. University officials are confident these practices are constitutional and consistent with U.S. Supreme Court decisions that say race is a permissible factor when part of a holistic admissions process. We know that enrolling students of all cultures and backgrounds improves the learning environment at UW-Madison and prepares everyone to be competitive in an increasingly multicultural world.

In the coming weeks and months, you may hear more about this issue as the discussion moves off our campus to the state Legislature and greater Wisconsin. If a legal or legislative challenge to admissions practices at UW-Madison emerges, we are fully prepared to respond to questions and defend our processes, as we did when we faced similar scrutiny in 2007.

To students, I especially want to tell you how important all of you are to UW-Madison's vibrant academic community and, eventually, to our world-class alumni population. All of you who have been accepted are here because you are Badgers, with the ability to succeed and contribute something special to our student body. Please do not listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

If you would like to remain engaged on how we can continue to improve our efforts when it comes to diversity on campus, I encourage you to get started by attending the annual diversity forum sponsored by the Office of the Vice Provost for Diversity and Climate, scheduled from 8:30 a.m.-3:30 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 6, at Union South.

And as we continue to discuss these issues, I want to remind everyone on campus of the importance we place on sifting and winnowing here at UW-Madison. Although we may disagree with some of those around us, we should respect differing viewpoints and not allow ourselves to be divided from within by an outside group.

149 comments:

They should enroll more students from West High in Madison, which has more National Merit Scholarship semi-finalists than all the other High Schools in Madison combined, and twice as many as any other high school in the state.

The chancellor's use of 'holistic' reminds me of something I saw on a streetcorner in San Francisco around 1980. Someone had posted a flyer advertising some kind of "holistic" health-related program. Someone else had come along with a pen, and wherever the flyer said "holistic", "holist", or "holism" (about 20 different places), had very neatly inserted "(ass)" before the word. Ever since then I've been unable to take "holistic" and its cognates seriously. They are not etymologically related to "hole", but very often look as if they ought to be, never more so than when used to describe the post-colorblind admissions policies of UW and other universities.(I should mention that I auto-plagiarized this comment from something I wrote about Berkeley 9+ years ago. I really wish it had been made obsolete in the interval.)

Mostly we admit people we believe will succeed at Wisconsin. Also, in order to feel better about ourselves, we enroll some students we know perfectly well will fail, even though they could succeed at other less academically intense institutions.

"The incident happened at the Inn on the Park, 22 S. Carroll St. Witnesses said a man came into the tavern and swore at three lawmakers, calling them criminals. A bartender said the man used the words to the effect of "money" and "damn Republicans," according to the police report."

How long before the dignified people of Madison get "Detroiter syndrome"--lying about where they're from?

From Ward's original draft:"To students, I especially want to tell you how important all of you are to UW-Madison's vibrant academic community even if you were too stupid to actually get into this school without a special set aside for your race, gender, ethnicity, sexual preference, etc. Remember, the world needs dummies with UW-Madison degrees too."

You know, if you worked in the Admissions Office, you'd be laughing at all of this nonsense!

First off, Admissions knows they have to OVERBOOK! (Just as airlines did ... just to make sure enough people come to the plane for takeoff.)

The best kids in every single year apply to multiple schools. And, believe it or not, there will be games that get played.

Take the "Harvard game," for instance. IF a kids gains an acceptance from Harvard ... there's a game at play ... where other universities are informed ... So that if they want this particlar student ... THEY'VE GOT TO BID!

I know a story from when my son was admitted. And, a little Russian girl ... (She's American. Both her parents are physicians. And, both came from Russia.) Instead of going into kindergarten, she was advanced to 2nd grade. (Where she always remained the top student.)

When she was about 13 years of age, she got involved in studying the hearing of slugs. At UCLA. Where, when she went there ... the campus cops would come ... to find out "what this kid was doing on campus!) So, she showed her permission pass.

When the Westinghouse Science affair took place, in the spring of her senior year. She placed 2nd. For the experimental stuff she had done on slugs.

BINGO! The vault at Caltech opened. She got in for FREE ADMISSION. (While her mom complained she still had to pay for room and board.)

This little girl was going to go to Mudd. (Which is an excellent school!) But Caltech's better. And, so the seat she was going to accept at Mudd, opened up to another student.

Meanwhile, I see nothing wrong with studying the ethnic backgrounds of Americans. Because if you're not an American Indian, you've got people in your own family who were born elsewhere. And, who probably came here on leaky wooden boats.

I can remember back to the wonderful history class taught by Professor Orosco, at Pasadena City College.

As I've said, his course covered American history up to 1865. Did you know how many Indian tribes there were, here, when the Pilgrims first landed in the early 1600's? (I was amazed. I think I had to memorize 10,000 tribal names.) And, I was also amazed at the breath of their diversity!

I think people are getting confused that there's something so special about White assholes ... being superior to all the others on earth ... that reality tends to escape them. Which is too bad.

By the way, how many geniuses are in any particular class? (Geniuses are also defined as "outliers.")

Can a class be dull? Only if your professor is STINKO.

And, I can remember, at times, sitting outside of a campus building at Pasadena City College. And, people would tell you about their wonderful professors! So that you, too, could be on the lookout for this man or woman ... when you were signing up for one of these required units.

Admissions? They've got seats to fill. And, sometimes, they get so desperate ... because students they want are accepted to Harvard.

Then, on the other side. They get lucky, too, when Harvard's full up ... and these kids who want college, choose Wisconsin.

(If it wasn't for Ann's photographs, I don't even think I'd have put Wisconsin on the list!) What schools in the old days, for me, were there? Oberlin. Chicago. Tufts.

Thrilled my son wanted to go to Mudd. And, thrilled he got in, EARLY ADMISSION. Took all the pressures off of his senior year! (And, Mudd accepted one of his friends from high school. So they were even close by in the same dorm.)

The wrong college is a DISASTER! (And, from what a cousin told me ... for 50% of the college admissions ... their first year in college is a disaster!) This was something I did not know.

As to the "highly qualified" kids that did not make it at first? They can always TRANSFER. Ask Admissions! Seats open up!

In five or fewer years our kid will be starting the college application process. It's not too soon, is it, to start placing various higher education institutions on the list titled, "Do Not Consider Putting In An Application There." How depressing, but likely true.

I'm a grad student in Neuroscience. My field is now officially majority female. This year, we admitted an entirely female class of first years. Yet there is no "Men in Neuroscience" foundation, no affirmative action, no talk of balancing this disparity. Nor should there be.

A certain number of stupid people should be let into places that have traditionally been reserved for only the ablest. Smart people need to be able to relate to stupid people. Look at the Unabomber and how isolated he got!!

When I went to college a long time ago, the university was obliged to take all state high school graduates that applied. Then the college of engineering used freshman chemistry to find out who was qualified to stay in school.

We know that enrolling students of all cultures and backgrounds improves the learning environment at UW-Madison and prepares everyone to be competitive in an increasingly multicultural world.

The old diversity dodge taken from the old Yugoslavian motto, "diversity is our greatest strength".

Number of white and black students to China or Japan to "help prepare" the Han and Yamoto Race people to be competitive in an increasingly multicultural world? Zero. Number of foreigners who are black and white brought in to teach Chinese and Japs language skills and how to manage their free trade wealth in other lands? Tens of thousands.

And the number of less qualified white and Asian given university spots and scholarships to help prepare black basketball players to be competitive and fuck women of other cultures in an increasingly diverse multicultural world? Zero.

UW-Madison uses holistic processes for undergraduate, graduate and professional schools that take into account a range of factors.

Yeah. That 'range of factors' tells all, about the motivations of the anointed clique who use circumlocutions to disguise the racial quotas of the incoming cohorts.

It's a direct parallel with the old University admissions arbiters preceding the 1960s, who somehow managed to exclude Jews, Catholics, blacks and other 'unpreferred' sorts from the ranks of the up-and-comers. Perhaps their criteria were less disguised than those of today, but their Sorting Hats were no more subjective.

"You had to admire the way perfectly innocent words were mugged, ravished, stripped of all true meaning and decency and then sent to walk the gutter...although ‘synergistically’ had probably been a whore from the start."

"Holistic" is code for "subjectively biased and conducive for deliberate discrimination."

If a "holistic" process consistently caused black applicants to be rejected over less-qualified non-black applicants, it would be considered a prima fascie case of impermissible racial discrimination. Colors reversed, it's still the same.

UW-Madison is engaged in a barely-obfuscated process of systematic racial discrimination, making the exact same arguments that were attempted to preserve and extend Jim Crow after passage of the 1964 Civil Rights Act . . . just racially-reversed.

Just wrote a thesis on this issue. An aside - was very strange to see the inside of law school again after 25 years. The main conceptual problem with Grutter, aside from the 25 year exemption in the Equal Protection Clause, is that it requires federal deference to the state's subjective assertion, without proof, of the social and economic benefit of diversity and then uses that deference to ratify racially discriminatory acts by the state. This is exactly the same analysis that the Plessy court used to justify segregation. Diversity relies upon the same legal basis as segregation and both cases ignore the express language of the 14th Amendment and the undeniable intent of the drafters of the 14th Amendment. The only difference between the two is the race(s) being targeted. The Civil War was fought and the 14th Amendment was passed to end the power of the states to discriminate on the basis of race. Plessy was a legal abomination and so is Grutter, for the exact same reason, they both ignored the fact that since 1868 states no longer have the legal authority to discriminate on the basis of race.

We can't bust heads like we used to. But we have our ways. One trick is to tell stories that don't go anywhere. Like the time I caught the ferry to Shelbyville. I needed a new heel for m'shoe. So I decided to go to Morganville, which is what they called Shelbyville in those days. So I tied an onion to my belt. Which was the style at the time. Now, to take the ferry cost a nickel, and in those days, nickels had pictures of bumblebees on 'em. Gimme five bees for a quarter, you'd say. Now where was I... oh yeah. The important thing was that I had an onion tied to my belt, which was the style at the time. You couldn't get white onions, because of the war. The only thing you could get was those big yellow ones...

The only thing more annoying than the constant use of "holistic" is its respelling as "wholistic."

Re snarky Bay Area graffitic text-modification, my favorite is still the placard I saw on Shattuck Ave. (Berkeley) showing a number of large, militant-looking women with the legend "We Still Ain't Satisfied."

The word "holistic" is used because the Supreme Court used it in Grutter:

Here, the Law School engages in a highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment. The Law School affords this individualized consideration to applicants of all races. There is no policy, either de jure or de facto, of automatic acceptance or rejection based on any single “soft” variable. Unlike the program at issue in Gratz v. Bollinger, ante, the Law School awards no mechanical, predetermined diversity “bonuses” based on race or ethnicity. See ante, at 23 (distinguishing a race-conscious admissions program that automatically awards 20 points based on race from the Harvard plan, which considered race but “did not contemplate that any single characteristic automatically ensured a specific and identifiable contribution to a university’s diversity”). Like the Harvard plan, the Law School’s admissions policy “is flexible enough to consider all pertinent elements of diversity in light of the particular qualifications of each applicant, and to place them on the same footing for consideration, although not necessarily according them the same weight.”

Designing a "holistic" policy may sound ridiculous to you, but it represents an effort to align with the law as articulated by the Supreme Court. So, if you don't like the word, your beef is with Sandra Day O'Connor.

Hagar:When I went to college a long time ago, the university was obliged to take all state high school graduates that applied. Then the college of engineering used freshman chemistry to find out who was qualified to stay in school.

That's how it worked at Purdue about an eon ago. I always thought that was a good approach.

"Here, the Law School engages in a highly individualized, holistic review of each applicant’s file, giving serious consideration to all the ways an applicant might contribute to a diverse educational environment."

One could imagine that the contribution of the applicant to the environment, might simply be that it is, say, pleasing to the eye and world view, to see a diverse face in the crowd. Makes everyone feel good about themselves and their school.

But that feels like, to me, something like:Hey folks! Look! The zoo has added a penguin to the sea lion area. Neat!

And that can't be good for anyone, can it?

I mean, really. How can the mere physical presence of a certain type of individual overrule, and rule out, someone who is just coming to learn, and academically deserves to be there?

New teachers would certainly do so. But what about "old timers?" Do you just take your list in hand ... And, not think about it much?

When you walk into a class on that first day, what strikes your attention?

When laptops became a new technology, this drove a few professors bats. But did you just see this as another item in a backpack?

How long does it take to become familiar with everyone?

One of my Pasadena City College speech teachers actually told his students that to stay in class ... he was calling on everyone. And, everyone he called on how to go in the front of the room. (I don't remember what the topics were.) But his classes were "over booked." Did he drop some kids? Yes.

But it doesn't take long for a teacher to get to know their students. (Unless you're dealing with those giant sized lecture halls the State of California is famous for, at Berkeley.)

I don't think "looking up" SAT scores would help you evaluate anything.

Would you trust "ethnic" information? I know I wouldn't.

I'd even bet the current student population at the U of W, at Madison, isn't even jazzed up on this topic. The kids don't care.

You hear the statistics that in most colleges and universities there are more administrators than teaching professors, something unimaginable for me having gone to a very fine school and having received an excellent and very affordable education 35 years ago.

Its no wonder that its hugely expensive and riddled with PC bullshit when you see that. Written with no hint of how stupid it sounds.

As long as the process is holistic (a word that in this usage could be replaced with "subjective"), the process is constitutional?

Basically she is saying that if you use a number of factors, none of which has any fixed, specific or determinable weight, your process is constitutional, even if some of the factors (like race) would be legally objectionable if used in a determinably advantageous way.

As I have said before, this merely encourages university administrations to obfuscate and lie.

At Wisconsin these holistic procedures result in a definable and very large imbalance between the admission rates of persons with similar academic qualifications but different races. If the holistic imbalance were in favor of whites, there would be howls of rage and lawsuits galore from the government. But if blacks "happen to be" favored by the undefinable holistic balance, it's ok.

If you spew bullshit, Madame Justice, you will beget bullshit. You will also create disrespect for your court, and disrespect for the administrators who hide their obvious intent in the haze of an cloudy ill defined process described by a cloudy ill defined word.

My son, on his own efforts, ended up First Chair in the clarinet section.

He went to Mudd. And, that was the end of the clarinet. (I fault Mudd for this, too! It's their weak link. There's just not enough time in the day.)

This is true, too, at Caltech. Even if you're going to write about your "instrument" in your application essay. It's not going to be used while you are there.

(I do think Caltech, however, has a basketball team. I saw a flyer up recently, where their coach was going to give a talk.)

USC, on the other hand, has a band! One of my son's high school friends was not only a USC student. HE WAS IN THE BAND!

Did you know they can march 26 miles while playing their instruments?

Did you know they fly to Japan? And, other wonderful places?

Well, USC has sports teams. Sports teams have periods of time set aside for the their bands to play.

I remember ... perhaps it was Joey's graduation party from USC ... that was held at the Atheneum at Caltech. And, he had "borrowed" other brass players ALL WEARING THEIR USC UNIFORMS ... to play for us! So, it's not outrageous to expect a kid grows up spending time playing an instrument ... would continue to do so.

I hope there are these facilities, to at the U of W, at Madison. (Because incoming students who play an instrument ... will find it easier to meet friends ... in the band's room.)

Sandra Day O'Connor was the first woman who was confirmed to the Supreme Court. Her "art" was her ability to bring herself to being the 5th vote ... And, she demanded, in return, that she writes the "capturing" opinion.

Rehnquist couldn't get even. He was a minority voice on his own court. And, by this alone, I have given Sandra Day O'Connor "moxie" credits.

That she brought "forks" and "plastic reindeer" to her written opinions ... and, never once got kicked to the sidewalk ... Just shows ya that there was a BIG FLAW among all those schmucky white men.

The problem's still there.

While KELO kicked Souter's reputation down to earth. (In a slum of his own creation.) While Pfizer ... who caused the developer to go after the land ... just slunk away in silence.

Prof. A: You're exactly right. My beef on the issue of racial preferences is with Madame Justice O'Connor, who pulled a political compromise out of her butt and called it constitutional law.

She's a marvelous woman whom I mostly admire a great deal. But Grutter is the single most unprincipled and intellectually dishonest opinion I can ever recall reading. It's a travesty, and she should indeed be ashamed of it.

For some odd reason I have a fair number of minority students in my freshman class this year. Based on class discussion and reading their first four short papers, they all hold as much promise as their fellow "white Wisconsin kids,' and I think it insulting and narrow to make insinuations about their intelligence as so many on this blog do. As much as folks here want to stress merit in test scores, I know how little of a predictor that can be. Fifteen years ago, when I was a high school teacher, I helped one of my bright and unusual female minority students write an application for Stanford; she probably was admitted in part because of AA. She graduated in three years, with a degree in engineering and geology, to save money and went on to get a job with a major oil company. Even I could not have predicted how quickly she would catch on and excel in the right atmosphere--

"It has been 25 years since Justice Powell first approved the use of race to further an interest in student body diversity in the context of public higher education. Since that time, the number of minority applicants with high grades and test scores has indeed increased. See Tr. of Oral Arg. 43. We expect that 25 years from now, the use of racial preferences will no longer be necessary to further the interest approved today."

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That's the "springing executory" version of the Fourteenth Amendment, the one that will magically return to meaning what it actually says, but not until 2028.

The problem is simply that the process is not holistic. UW Madison places a very substantial emphasis on race over all these other factors. Empirical evidence proves this.

A greater problem is that all these competitive universities are chasing a limited number of qualified minority applicants. Very little supply, very much demand. That's a shameful indictment of our society, but no potential student who happens to have white skin (or who is an Asian-American) and who worked hard and followed the rules -- to quote Bill Clinton -- should suffer to right some societal wrong, or some historical wrong. Ever. Period. Full stop.

Public education must be merit-based, and not based on skin color. Any other way is grossly unconstitutional. Period.

This issue -- like abortion -- keeps coming up because the law we have now is wrong. It's morally wrong. It doesn't sit well. The Supreme Court has taken the exact opposite of a common law approach -- what a reasonable person would do -- and has also taken matters out of the hands of the legislatures. We are left in an ethical limbo, and it will be that way until we get good law on these vital matters.

"roesch-voltaire said... For some odd reason I have a fair number of minority students in my freshman class this year. Based on class discussion and reading their first four short papers, they all hold as much promise as their fellow "white Wisconsin kids,' and I think it insulting and narrow to make insinuations about their intelligence as so many on this blog do. "

You do have to feel sorry for people paying for classes from someone who cannot read.

Carol, I do want all opinions to be winnahs, even though I know they will not be.

The crucial element of O'Connor's decision was that it allowed race to be a factor in admissions decisions for the purpose of creating a diverse university environment. You can not discriminate based on race, but you may make race a factor in discriminating between applicants. In order to get the proper number of angels dancing on this pin, O'Connor had to endorse a bullshit elastic word like "holistic."

Once you have said that race may be a factor, but not the factor, you have invited lies and obfuscation. (There is a quota, we just are deciding on a holistic case by case basis what the quota ought to be, so there really is not a quota.)

Of course O'Connor also said (was this part of the holding in the decision?) that her view would be inoperative after 25 years. Do you think that will happen?

Also, since all of the majority decision was tied up in a judicial view of a compelling state interest in "diverse" institutions, why can't the legislature redefine the compelling interest, and say that the most compelling interest is now equivalent treatment of all races under the law in admissions decisions. Where does that leave the university administrations?

"I helped one of my bright and unusual female minority students write an application for Stanford; she probably was admitted in part because of AA. She graduated in three years, with a degree in engineering and geology, to save money and went on to get a job with a major oil company. Even I could not have predicted how quickly she would catch on and excel in the right atmosphere--"

I'm sure many people who benefitted from legal discrimination against blacks went on to be financially successful. Somehow that's not seen as a valid reason for continuing discrimination against blacks.

There isn't a problem with taking race into account as a factor, among many factors. That's the law, as bad as it may be.

And there is merit to the law. If UW Madison were to have one percent minorities, for example, and the state is 15 percent minorities, well, that's an issue that needs to be addressed because the flagship state university has a duty to all of its citizens.

However, what's happening is the opposite. There is no particular shortage of minority students at UW Madison. It is empirically clear that UW Madison makes skin color a critical factor in admissions, above all those many others. It's unconstitutional. It needs to stop.

Fifteen years ago, when I was a high school teacher, I helped one of my bright and unusual female minority students write an application...

Thirty years ago, I helped a friend write his resume and application for a job at a nuclear power plant. He got the job, is now a supervisor and makes more than I do although I have a M.S. and he has an associates degree. He's not a minority though, so there's no real point to the story except to get a friend who's good at writing to help you with your resume. Unlike you're story of which the point is to justify racial bias.

What is always missing from these discussions is that the ideal minority student is indistinguishable from the ideal Asian or Caucasian student. There is no intellectual diversity, and the successful minorities grow up with the same type of professional parents in the same type of environment. Since a university should value thought and scholarly pursuits above dreadlocks and English as a second language, the joke is the total lack of a real attempt to recruit students of diverse politics and philosophies.

Also, ever look at an admissions brochure? The rainbow coalition is on the cover and everyone is happy

Althouse, the all-day diversity program is on a Thursday when classes are being held? Why not on a Saturday or Sunday? Or would that interfere with the Diversity Vice Provost's leisure time on the weekend?

All of you who have been accepted are here because you are Badgers, with the ability to succeed and contribute something special to our student body. Please do not listen to anyone who tries to tell you otherwise.

Seems to make Althouse's point that the prevailing attitude of the administration toward those denied admission because of their race is: go fuck yourself, you're not a Badger.

Also, Althouse,do you ever blame yourself a tad for what has happened to UW in the last 30 years? All the wasteful so-called educating being done at the expense of these young dopey students who are daming their futures and any chance of happy,productive lives by majoring in womyn studies or some other bullshit course. Do you wish you had spoken up about these dumb ideas?

I want to remind everyone on campus of the importance we place on sifting and winnowing here at UW-Madison. Sifting and winnowing? Are these official UW buzzwords? Would someone tell him that sifting is done to create uniformity and eliminate diversity?

How come there aren't teachers in Black schools, who identify their best academic students; and, then find the colleges that will coach them to excellence?

You think I'm kidding?

I'd bet dollars to doughnuts ... that coaches of sports teams ... have direct dial phone numbers to coaches in colleges. Where they tell them they have someone with TALENT! And, these people are signed up ... the way talent gets signed up!

But it's only the Asian kids parents, now, who are pushing their students to excel at taking the SAT!

And, I remember the calculus teacher who said the students who received outside "help" got terrible advice in doing calculus. And, couldn't even show their work! They were shown "short cuts" to answers.

Short cuts give you an edge when you're taking a test.

One of the best ones I ever heard ... is when you're taking a multiple choice test, read from the bottom UP! That way, the last answer you'll see is "A" ... And, you wouldn't have missed the clue: "All of the above." Or "A" and "C" ... which means you need to fill in the bubble at "E" ...

I don't see this as making strong students!

And, yes. I see diversity as one of the best ways to spread the wealth around ... so that kids ... free of their homes ... Can meet and mingle with other kids ... who didn't grow up as neighbors.

Anyway, the best diversity starts within the schools that encourage students.

And, just like you can encourage athletes ... You can encourage academics. (Especially in those communities where carrying books around is laughed at. Or frowned upon. Or an excuse for a bully to beat you up.)

By the way, some kids have easier high school experiences than others. But when they get to college they're at a loss. Where, on the other hand, the kids exposed to college level courses ... can sometimes breeze through their early requirements.

It's still going to be a bear!

And, I've also learned that the kid who has to work hard to earn the "C" grade ... is sometimes so able to work hard ... that at jobs they are your hardest working employees.

While the "A" students think they'll be paid by an employer to have fun. Sorry to disappoint you, but no employer pays you to "have fun."

Hard work, on the other hand, lets the supervisors relax.

And, someone who loves a subject? Wow, that alone will put you ahead of the curve.

My cousin taught at a high school in Montebello, California. Most of her students were Hispanic.

When she spotted a kid with talent, she'd give him an extra textbook to take home. (God forbid the kid would be seen in the neighborhood carrying a textbook!)

But she's been invited to college graduations! Because she saw to it that talented students applied to the array of local colleges in Los Angeles. (Sure. On scholarships, some went out of town.)

But good teachers just don't teach their single subjects. They really take an interest in the kids.

What motivated my cousin? She came from a home where the motivations were built in. She wasn't necessarily an "A" student, either. But her sister was! And, today, her sister is a tenured professor at the University in Ohio, in Columbus. It was something she loved.

Going back to when these two were kids? The older one always wanted to play "classroom." Always wanted to teach.

And, once you're doing it ... the kids aren't just a "passing parade."

Even as a kid, I knew I could knock on a neighbor's door. Inside lived a fantastic English teacher. She was always available to help.

If kids didn't need help, they wouldn't even need school! It would be like walking. It would be something that they could start doing on automatic pilot.

"We know that enrolling students of all cultures and backgrounds improves the learning environment at UW-Madison and prepares everyone to be competitive in an increasingly multicultural world."

Realy? What evidence is there that this is true? Answer = there isn't any.

Which is why we get this idiocy from the academic liberal left:

roesch-voltaire said...For some odd reason I have a fair number of minority students in my freshman class this year. Based on class discussion and reading their first four short papers, they all hold as much promise as their fellow "white Wisconsin kids,' and I think it insulting and narrow to make insinuations about their intelligence as so many on this blog do. As much as folks here want to stress merit in test scores, I know how little of a predictor that can be. Fifteen years ago, when I was a high school teacher, I helped one of my bright and unusual female minority students write an application for Stanford; she probably was admitted in part because of AA. She graduated in three years, with a degree in engineering and geology, to save money and went on to get a job with a major oil company. Even I could not have predicted how quickly she would catch on and excel in the right atmosphere--"

Of course this issue here and by most if all those posting isn't the intelligence of minorities versus whites.

And as a teacher you have access and match entrance test score to class results? You've tracked this? Bullshit.

But it's really telling that r/v's position is based on rhetorical evidence from a single person years ago. Against a mountain of evidence that AA students success in college is what you expect...dramatically lower than non AA counterparts.

The scary thing is that asshats like you teach. I would be embarrassed to post something so biased, idiotic, and devoid of logic or basis in fact.

There's no point in expending energy to apply for entrance to a school which, more likely than not, does not sincerely welcome your application and that, more important, won't take your application seriously.

*****

It seems obvious to ask why anyone ought to expend the time, pay the application fees, do the application and submission things, and bother with campus visits and the whole gamut of whatnot if/when one has come to learn that all of that effort is worth nothing in the eye of an institution of higher learning.

This seems even more particularly obvious, as a prospect, when piled atop the notion that all and every effort through 12th grade is worth nothing if such is will only be met with blind eyes by higher institutions in general.

***

So. Who's supposed to be applying to colleges 5-7 years hence? This is a serious question.

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Public universities, in particular, owe all a specific, precise, honest, open and thought-through precis of their standards, holistic and/or otherwise. More to the fine point, each public university, in particular, owes that and ought to do it. Surely, there can be no point in leading on young people (teens, minors, folks who after all are in just their junior and/or senior years of high school education) to spend precious time or expend precious dollars--on application fees, campus visits and the like--on something that the applied-to institutions know, from the git-go, is a fool's errand.

Here's a thought experiment for you: the diversity officers usually argue that a diverse student body makes the school experience better for students. What if this were factually incorrect? Suppose it were shown in appropriately rigorous experiments that students learned more effectively in a monochromatic environment?

Would it then be OK to use non-white, non-asian race as a negative factor in a holistic student admission process? And if it isn't, why should we allow the converse?

When you read this PC mealy-mouth garbage, sometimes it is important to cut to the chase. This rat is really saying: "I worship PC, Diversity and Multiculturalism, and cannot accept a race-neutral admissions process. Cultural Marxist rules on this campus, so we are going to have race quotas for admission and you can all go to Hell if you don't like it."

The biggest problem with the knowledge that there is an affirmative action program at probably all of the major educational institutions, and knowing that, would you be willing to hire a black attorney if your freedom or your estate was at stake? I'm reminded of the story not too long ago about teachers in Atlanta and Philadelphia changing the test scores so the students would end up with better test grades. All this does is affirm the belief that blacks have been promoted without doing the work. It leaves me with the notion that maybe I wouldn't want to hire a black. What if that person was in that position, not by being smart, but there solely by being affirmative actioned to the position.

How can anyone doubt the value of "diversity"? Before the concept existed, about 25 years ago, the United States was a total flop in terms of international business, politics, etc. But we have recently made great strides to overcome that historical failure, all thanks to diversity!

The only person using racial slurs here is this Carol Herman. And the disturbing thing is that she believes she is using slurs -- that she is being racist -- in the service of 'justice."

And so she excuses in herself what she condemns in others.

That's the level of sickness this ideology perpetuates.

Rosa Luxemborg insightfully called this delusion "pimping truth" -- perverting what you think you are cherishing. So, pimp on Carol. You have plenty of company, in every admissions office and gilded deanery in America.

Sifting and winnowing? Are these official UW buzzwords? Would someone tell him that sifting is done to create uniformity and eliminate diversity?

Yes, they actually are official UW buzzwords.

http://www.secfac.wisc.edu/SiftAndWinnow.htm

So. Who's supposed to be applying to colleges 5-7 years hence? This is a serious question.

Indeed. People like r-v are staggeringly cavalier, even while the actual number of young men going to college is continuing to fall. I'm convinced one reason is that these young men are largely unwilling to put up with this mealy-mouthed bullshit used to justify hostility toward them.

That last "winnowing and sifting" paragraph carries rather unpleasant implications: "I remind you all that here at UW-Madison we have cast our dissenters into the wind, and identify and remove any remaining opposition. I'm confident that our resulting academic monoculture will never show any support for the heresies of outsiders. Or perhaps additional sifting and winnowing will be required."

Is he actually saying what it sounds like he's saying, or is there some weird but innocent UW jargon there that isn't clear to us divisive outsiders?

The hilarious part about gender is that colleges and universities are majority and very often overwhelmingly majority female -- except for hard science and technical outposts.

Business school was about 50/50.

Here's a thought experiment for you: the diversity officers usually argue that a diverse student body makes the school experience better for students. What if this were factually incorrect? Suppose it were shown in appropriately rigorous experiments that students learned more effectively in a monochromatic environment?

I read an article for one of my classes a number of years ago about faultlines that said basically, people worked really well together in groups when they were all the same, or when they were diverse enough not to be able to fall back into easy faultlines of age/race/sex etc. So if the group was comprised of all white 20 yo males they would do great, and if the group was pretty equally mixed they did fine, but the half male/half female, half old/half young, half white/half black that groups had a tendency to group by those faultlines and not get along as well as a group.

Ann althouse "Designing a 'holistic' policy may sound ridiculous to you, but it represents an effort to align with the law as articulated by the Supreme Court. So, if you don't like the word, your beef is with Sandra Day O'Connor."

I'm perfectly willing to condemn O'Connor for such BS...although in her favor it's worth remembering that she dissented from the infamous and evil Kelo Decision.

Curious George why so smug,and why such claims- here is a quote that refutes your claim of a mountain of evidence: "Academically selective institutions are almost always strongly committed to affirmative action in admissions, yet at the same time they tend to deliver a high black student graduation rate. Obviously, this undercuts the assertion made by many conservatives that black students admitted to our most prestigious colleges and universities under race-conscious admissions programs are incapable of competing with their white peers and should instead seek admissions at less academically rigorous schools. The fact that almost all entering black students at Harvard, Amherst, Princeton, and several other highly ranked colleges and universities go on to earn their diplomas shows that African Americans do compete successfully at our nation's most prestigious institutions of higher learning."

Sofa for your information I raised the question of low enrollment for men at the college level years ago before it was popular and the big concern was the under representation of women in the STEM fields. I believe women should be encourage to work in these fields, but I have never been upset that they maybe underrepresented in civil engineering-- In the last ten years, many high schools have done a good job of preparing both men and women in the basics of science and math, and it shows in the number of women who do well in calculus.

Unless your Chancellor has a revelation, you must assume that he has peer-reviewed evidence to support his statement that:"We know that enrolling students of all cultures and backgrounds improves the learning environment at UW-Madison and prepares everyone to be competitive in an increasingly multicultural world."

We know? Really?

All he has to do is produce the evidence and the case for the university admission procedures is made.If he can't produce the evidence, on what basis can that statement be justified?

So you are an African American student being given outstanding grades in, say, the Atlanta public school system. Part of your good grade is to make you feel good about yourself and part of the good grade is to make the teachers shine and keep their jobs. And so you qualify to attend the University of Georgia where you can go for free because of your great grades and where you sit in a seat that cannot be occupied by a white kid who graduated from a demanding private school which awarded her grades that were lower. And at the University of Georgia you find yourself receiving very low grades, often failing grades. What would you conclude about the system's justice? What would you conclude about racism in America? How could you have been transformed from a high achiever in your mostly all African American academic universe to a low achiever in this larger, principally white world?

I too have taught. I had a white student once, he went on to kill several people and terrorize five small towns. They eventually caught him and he went laughing to the gas chamber. This proves how dangerous it is to educate the white heathen.

"The first article presents data from 2005, the second from 2003. The huge disparities in the data from just two years apart indicate the danger of relying on small one-year sample sizes to draw conclusions about liberal arts colleges."

Designing a "holistic" policy may sound ridiculous to you, but it represents an effort to align with the law as articulated by the Supreme Court. So, if you don't like the word, your beef is with Sandra Day O'Connor.

Other than the brute realities of power—until some future Supreme Court tosses out the precedents— is there any reason why Sandra Day O'Connor's thoughts on the subject are worthy of 2 minutes' attention?

I don't know whether you are truly ignorant of this, or are merely being disingenuous, but near-100% graduation rates from the Ivies (or the Golden Dozen, as Hacker and Dreifus call them) are the baseline expectation.

If you get admitted to Harvard or Princeton, they will bend over backwards to make sure you graduate.

They wouldn't want their decision to admit you called into question, would they?

Institutional discrimination has been reformed to normalize denigrating individual dignity. This is a regressive outcome for civil and human rights; but, it is politically profitable, and the policy will continue to corrupt individuals and society.

Oli for me this conversation begins by questioning the base assumptions of so-called merit only guidelines, because as the data has shown if you are first born into middle class professional family that sends you to good schools, well lucky you as you are likely to succeed in college-- and how much of that was based on your merit and how much on the luck of the draw. So yes I give personal examples of students who were not so lucky, but given the opportunity managed to do well- in one case graduate from Stanford in three years- something I suspect few who write on this blog could do. I look at my students today and see similar promise among the minority students as well as white Wisconsin kids. And along with personal examples, I cited this article: http://www.jbhe.com/features/50_blackstudent_gradrates.html But of course then there will be the claim, well if you get into Harvard or Wisconsin they want to graduate you, and to some extent that is true-- is working for retention also a bad thing?

So yes I give personal examples of students who were not so lucky, but given the opportunity managed to do well- in one case graduate from Stanford in three years- something I suspect few who write on this blog could do.